The Korey Wise Innocence Project (KWIP), established by the University of Colorado Boulder, fights against wrongful criminal convictions by providing investigative and legal services to innocent inmates convicted of crimes they did not commit. Backed by thorough data collected first hand by the project and research done into exonerations across the country, in this article the KWIP highlights the five most common causes of wrongful convictions in America. They address eyewitness misidentification, false confessions, police and prosecutorial misconduct, false or misleading evidence, and witness perjury and explain specific cases where these factors have led to wrongful convictions as well as listing statistics showing the impact each factor has on wrongful convictions. For my work this year in ISM I plan to focus on shortcomings and flaws in the criminal justice system or the world of criminal law and I feel that there is no better place to start than wrongful convictions. In order for the American criminal justice system to function there has to be a balance between the ability of prosecutors to effectively convict criminals of their crimes while also allowing the “innocent until proven guilty” to stand for defendants. The biggest factor in maintaining this balance is assessing the reliability and validity of different pieces of evidence and this article addresses possible concerns with how much courts rely on witness statements during cases. Currently, the rate of wrongful convictions in America is estimated at around 4-6%, according to the Georgia Innocence Project. This means that around 1 out of every 20 convicted criminals are innocent of the crimes they were charged with. I plan to argue that this rate of wrongful convictions is frightening and is a problem that needs to be addressed, and will use the information and findings of this article as a source of finding a solution. This article ties directly into my goal of finding a way to maintain the balance in our justice system so criminals can continue to be convicted effectively while subsequently lowering the rate of wrongful convictions
The KWIP addresses false information from witness testimony - both simple eyewitness misidentification as well as purposeful perjury - as a leading cause of wrongful convictions. While these are two separate issues, they both concern a central question: how much can witness testimony be relied on during court? While a multitude of studies have proven the unreliability of eyewitness identification, as mentioned in the article, it still remains an extremely persuasive piece of evidence in court. This is cause for alarm that despite the issue of this testimony being consistently proven to be shaky, it still carries much weight in convicting suspects. It is also cause for concern that one of the largest driving factors in evidence is based simply on what a person saw. And this does not even address the issue of perjury. Studies like these paired with the numbers of false convictions caused by these wrongful eyewitness accounts prove that these are less reliable sources of evidence than they are now considered. For criminal defense lawyers, this is a critical concept to understand as it puts a burden on defense to poke holes in witness testimony and find ways to prove that it should not immediately be taken as fact. This is an important step to ruling out unreliable evidence or at the very least holding the system accountable by only allowing solid, indisputable eyewitness testimony to be allowed. As for perjury, there are often clear incentives that drive people to falsely testify. These can be seen in prisoners being rewarded for testifying against other criminals or in witnesses having some other unseen benefit to lying. There are two separate issues to be addressed here. Firstly, the blatantly wrongful practice of providing rewards to people in order to get them to testify. While this is indeed an effective way to get potential witnesses to take the stand, it has absolutely no way of ensuring the statements they make are not simply fabricated to receive the reward they are promised. This is a major flaw in the system as while many will stand by the "no snitching" policy of many criminals, incentives are often a draw for some to lie. Especially inmates with nothing to lose. At the very least I feel that it should be required for the incentives provided to the witness to be presented as a way to attack the credibility of the testimony. In addition, I feel that punishments for this perjury should be extreme as lies in court can and will have major effects and often ruin lives.
The KWIP also highlights false and misleading forensic evidence as a major cause of wrongful convictions. While this is an issue that continues to inherently improve as technology progresses and advancements are made in the forensic field, it is still a major problem that should be addressed. Firstly, forensic science is simply not placed under the same scrutiny and criticism as other sciences. While other studies need continued experimentation and trial in order to have their findings and conclusions be viewed as fact, results from forensics are often left open to interpretation and can be twisted and fabricated to further a cause or be used by one side of a case or another. This simply makes no logical sense. Why should forensics, where people's lives are on the line, not be forced to the same standards of other disciplines? Additionally, some flaws in the forensic world have already been highlighted as bitemarks and hair analysis have been thrown out and labeled as “junk science.” The scary thing for me is that these processes were allowed to be used as evidence and treated as fact before they could even be proven as legitimate. While this may not be completely pertinent to my career plan as a criminal lawyer, it is exceptionally pertinent to the justice system criminal lawyers work as parts of. I feel that the last two factors, false confessions and police and prosecutorial misconduct, go hand in hand as false confessions are a result of the latter. I feel that confessions yielded as a result of interrogation practices simply should not carry the same validity as a traditional confession. Police use coercive techniques during long interrogation processes to supposedly get justice by extracting a confession. However, this is clearly flawed as these tactics would likely work on innocent people too. The incredible pressure and near torturous circumstances suspects are placed in would often cause even innocent people to crack due to fear and the mental pressure they endure. I feel that the acceptance of this practice and the confessions that come as a result of it is simply unethical, impractical, and unreliable. This is another area that I feel needs to be changed. For the last factor I chose to focus mainly on prosecutorial misconduct, as my topic is focused on the “lawyer” side more than on the law enforcement side. This includes actions such as concealing evidence or providing known perjured or false evidence during trial. While this is often blatantly illegal, it is a major part of many cases and skilled prosecutors can find ways around this. This leads me to want to explore some of the loopholes that make it possible for prosecutors to manipulate the system in order to convict people and find ways to limit the misconduct this leads to. This also ties me back into the ethical side of law. Even in the professional ethics side, there is a question of whether lawyers should be dedicated to their work and getting the result they want or dedicated to the system and allowing it to operate the way it was designed. For lawyers, does manipulating the system legally using loopholes or other methods count as remaining ethical as it is technically allowed? Or is this something they know they should stray away from and simply do because of a dedication to winning their case? Additionally, I feel like while defendants must maintain a level of dedication to their client, regardless of their true innocence or guilt, prosecutors should be dedicated to finding the correct criminal and so is manipulation really even effective in doing so?
The questions posed by this article, both ethical questions and simple questions of what can be done to reduce the impact these factors have on false convictions, are all pertinent to my research throughout the year. Our justice system is imperfect and no matter how much we attempt to maintain a balance, there is always work to be done. This drives me to want to play a role in this legal balancing act.